Owing to its excellent mechanical properties and workability, acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (referred to as ‘ABS’ hereinafter) has been widely applied to electric appliances, electronic products and office automation devices. However, the resin itself does not have flame resistance. To endow flame resistance to the ABS resin, a flame retardant and a flame retardant auxiliary have been added.
ABS resin has another disadvantage of poor weatherability, which is attributed to the unsaturated binding region of butadiene rubber, one of the major components of the resin, being easily cut off by UV, oxygen and heat, and causes aging of the resin.
The addition of a flame retardant and a flame retardant auxiliary to the resin to endow flame resistance has the problems of reducing the mechanical properties, impact resistance, thermostability and weatherability.
As explained hereinbefore, a flame retardant additive to ABS resin reduces not only its mechanical properties but also thermostability and weatherability. To avoid such problems, different kinds of stabilizers might be used to improve thermostability and weatherability. However, the addition of a high-priced stabilizer results in an increase of production costs and might reduce thermostability.
Thus, development of an acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene resin having excellent thermostability, weatherability and flame resistance is needed.